Safetyville, USA Part 1

Arthur Busch 0:23

We zipped around the roads and past the sights like a replica of a local bridge. There were college kids and cops there. These little cars were not go-karts with the loud gas engines. These were slick and quiet little cars, the kind that a kid can only dream of to drive to get to Safetyville. They had a measuring stick by the entrance gate. There were lines and lines of kids who wanted to get into Safeville for the chance to be like their mom and dad and drive a car. Flint was all about cars in those days. Cars were the lifeblood of Flint, Michigan in the 1960s. For nearly 20 years, Flint's Kersley Park was home 36,000 square foot miniature city that featured sidewalks, small buildings. They look like Flint. There was a police station, a fire station, black top city streets, street signs, traffic signals, and of course the battery-powered miniature automobiles. And they look like Corvettes and General Motors cars. Flint police who worked there with us kids wore riot helmets. And that kind of scared me a bit. They were there to help teach us about pedestrian and traffic safety during our tour of Safetyville. For many kids, it was a time when they paid more attention or better attention than at Freeman Elementary School in their classroom because getting a driver's license was the coolest, most important thing in the whole wide world. The college kids and cops gave us a test. If a kid passed it, they would receive their very first driver's license. I needed to know the shapes and colors of the highway signs. There was red, there was yellow. Those were pretty easy to remember. There were triangles and hexagons. Seems like such a simple thing now, but back then it was all I could think about. Except of course the Detroit Tigers beating the New York Yankees. With my Safeville driver's license, that meant I could return to drive those cool little cars throughout the summer. And boy was I ever after my mom to take us to Safeville. My mom was from the east side of Flint. She grew up on New York Avenue, and my aunts and uncles, they still lived over there in that day, right there in that neighborhood where my mother was raised. For me, it was another world away from the Dixieland subdivision in the South End of Flint. Our houses were newer in the South End. We had our pick in we had our own park in the South End of Flint, Windyate Park, built around the chemical dump site General Motors had left behind. We had a good playground equipment and a park leader. They called it Totlot. The leader was usually a college kid who babysat the entire neighborhood and led them, led us kids in arts and crafts as well as games. But one thing we didn't have was a miniature city with cool cars to drive. The east side of Flint had Kersley Park. It was an old place with a strange-looking concrete pavilion built like a fort. It had a big swimming pool that was the center of attention of the neighborhood on warm summer days in the state of Michigan. My mom would occasionally let us swim there or play on the playground equipment with our cousins. Kersley Park had some cool playground equipment. It was in 1963 when Kersley Park built two new playground structures, Kersley Park Playland and Kittyland Jr., as well as the fabulous Safeville. Safetyville, of course, was a total of 30,000 square feet, a miniature town, courtesy of the Industrial Mutual Association, known by the locals in Flint as the IMA. The IMA was a charitable organization started by General Motors in the 1920s to provide recreational and social amenities for the people of Flint. In addition to Safeville, the IMA had an auditorium that held the circus, concerts, and large community events. Many of the world's best known entertainers appeared at the Flint IMA over the decades. The IMA owned and operated a championship golf course called Brookwood. It funded recreational leagues for the auto workers and their families to participate in various sporting activities. In my mind, the best thing the IMA ever did for my family and friends was provide the money for Safetyville. Kids could drive the 12 miniature-powered replicas of Corvettes and the other GM vehicles around the small Flint town, provided they knew the rules of the road and they passed the road test. I learned how to safely navigate a city street. We learned the rules of the road back then, and we had to remember while we were operating those cars. The operating concept of Safetyville in the 1960s was to be a fun and educational project geared toward children ranging in ages from 5 to 10 years old. Spring, summer, and fall sessions were held between April and October. Safetyville hired as many as three dozen teenagers who were then hired to help manage the excited visitors. The citizens of Mini Flint, Safetyville, had 25 cars that were equipped with seat belts and an accelerator and brakes, and had a blazing hot top speed of 3 miles an hour. I must say the lack of speed never bothered those kids nor myself. It was said that Safetyville had 13 new electric-powered Chevrolet Corvettes in all at one point. The boys in my neighborhood always dreamed of having a Corvette someday. That was a Chevrolet, and of course a General Motors car. In 1969, Safetyville attendance was down. That year's attendance was 17,551 young kids. That was a decrease of 3,800 from the prior year. The declining attendance in 1969 was attributed to the teacher strikes and bad spring weather. From 1963 to 1969, the total number of participants was reported to be almost 110,000 youngsters. In 1975, it was reported that Safetyville, USA was alive and well, but in reality, in the 1970s, Safetyville began to have financial problems. The city of Flint, which essentially ran the place, was in a big financial trouble. The area began to decline, that is the neighborhood. The property was vandalized at Safetyville. Eventually in 1981, the mini Flint town was demolished. The Kersley Park swimming pool met the same fate just three years later in 1984. It was sad as my family used to go to that park every 4th of July to watch the fireworks and listen to music. They had a pavilion at the city of Flint and hosted as a temporary stage. It was a great place for families to gather. I still have fond memories of that place and see it as a very sad thing for the people who remain not to have those great amenities that once existed in that park. In all, the IMA, who built Safeville, operated it from 1963 to 1978. The city of Flint acquired the operation of the mini Flint town and renamed it Safetyville USA. For thousands and thousands of Flint area residents, their first experience behind the wheel of a car was at the IMA Safetyville. It was one of those special experiences that evoked many fond childhood memories. I'd like to take you in another direction. We'll now hear from Lee Xline, provided, who is an expert and collector of the type of powered cars that were used at Safetyville. Lee actually bought some of the cars that were used in my childhood days at Safetyville. He will tell us more about the Safetyville concept and about the cars that we drove. So I want to switch gears. I want to talk to Lee Xline, who is from Power Cars Jr., who's an expert in the type of cars that were driven at Safetyville. And he also uh has a collection of photographs that are on the internet. So I asked Lee about how much these cars would cost and whether it's possible to recreate Safetyville. And here's what he had to say. You can control them, you can cut down the speed on them. What did one of those cars cost?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Well, let's see. The 1965 Mustang Jr. I have committed to my memory. Uh the pedal car was $12.95. The gas-powered promotional car, the the power by Power Car Company, was $537. That'll give you an idea of the cost on them. They were not cheap. Got uh original sales uh bulletins on the company, and I can tell you exactly what they paid for those cars.

Arthur Busch 10:15

So let's say you and I were gonna go in business and we were gonna start Safetyville all over again. But what would it cost to get a fleet of those cars?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Nowadays, uh the available electric motors are so much better, and it's uh definitely worth going that way. Full speed or nothing, and uh they only went five miles an hour. Well, nowadays um you can get a lot better than that. Matter of fact, uh two cars were produced for the light, the latest Pee-Wee Herman movie in the movie. Uh, one was made for the Pee-Wee himself and one was made for the stunt driver. Those were modern electric drive chains and would do 45 miles an hour inches off the ground.

Arthur Busch 10:52

Yeah, we don't want that for our safety bill if we're gonna make one with a bunch of little kids. No. So you didn't answer my question. How much if we were gonna go in business, how much would it cost us to get a fleet of cars for a safety bill?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Uh to get a running operating car is gonna be about four grand. A piece? Per car, yeah. Oh my yeah, they are not cheap. They're highly detailed, unlike a lot of other cars. So it takes a long time to handling the fiberglass, plus all the other parts, and I know what they paid for Pee-Wee's cars, and those are parts I provided in a company in California put them together.

Arthur Busch 11:33

So I went on to ask Lee about the cars themselves and how they chose the cars. And of course, Flint being a General Motors town, uh when they purchased these cars, they modified Fords to make them look like General Motors vehicles. Uh, and then he went on to talk about how they actually operated in the speed, which should bring back a lot of memories for most of you. They were definitely not a cheap toy. So so they put a what you're saying is they put a Ford car in the middle of General Motors uh company town. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

I am changing out the style on the front and the rear end of it. Yep. They changed the rear end just so that it wouldn't look like a Ford? Yep, yep. If you repair, you look at the front end on they squared off the headlights, they changed off the taillights, but the full base of it is a 1955-56 Thunderbird.

Arthur Busch 12:29

Now those cars that uh uh were found at safety, they had limited limited speed, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

How did they limit the early ones, the electric ones, were six volt um motors uh that used a forge starter motor, and they would run only five miles per hour. They went to a gas-powered uh model then? Yep, the Corvere Monza, um, it was a prototype car that was put out. Uh that was made by the RUP company, and RUP had a gas-powered version. But the early ones were electric powered, do five miles an hour, and it was all or nothing. There was a I don't know. If you're old enough, you'll know the trucks that used to have a button on the floor. You'd step on it and the starter motor gauge. Well, this had the same thing on the floor of those cars. You step on it and engage the starter motor and send the car running, uh, top speed, five miles an hour, and then when you let off of it, it went to nothing.

Arthur Busch 13:23

So my conversation with Lee went uh toward uh trying to figure out where the other safety vills might have been in America. And he goes on in the interview to explain uh that there were several others, including Danville, Illinois, which was most like Flint. Um he talks a little bit about that concept of Safetyville and how successful it was. The vehicles that you had pictures of, though some of those, I assume, not probably not all, but some of them were from Safetyville. And at that time, safety, the concept of Safetyville was not unique. It was Flint wasn't the only place in the nation that had such a thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

No, there was another program pretty much uh exactly the same in uh Illinois, in Danville, Illinois. Uh there was another one in Tampa, and uh I think there was another one in um Louisiana. I've got uh just a little bit of information on a lot of these things. There's there's not a lot of information on junior cars in general, and these safety programs, it just seems that they hit, they happen, and then they're gone.

Arthur Busch 14:34

Uh so I finished up my uh conversation with Lee Xline uh by asking him if it's possible to ever have Safetyville again. Uh can it be revived? Uh and what lessons might have been learned as a result of Safetyville? We already know they were all good. We'll finish the interview with Lee Xline. So the uh do you see a revival of these for purposes of teaching young people how to you know how to drive? And you know, because one of the ladies today that was on the uh you know on one of these websites talking back about this picture, this series of pictures you had said stop, look, and listen. That was what she remembered from Safety Bill. And that's a pretty good lesson across the road. Do you see any way this might be revived in some form or fashion?

SPEAKER_01 15:29

With all the liabilities and you with a legal background, you would understand there's so much with people wanting to sue that I find it very difficult to see a community doing that, and it would be a rather large investment as it was when it first came out. Uh how company first started pushing the idea of these safety bill type areas in 1958.

Arthur Busch 15:53

So so basically uh the idea that that people the people of Genesee County, the Greater Flint area or Detroit, want you know, even with all their rich history, they probably wouldn't be able to do that again unless the mods or somebody who put a foundation, maybe Ford Foundation or somebody, bestowed a whole lot of money to do it. It would take practical.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

It'd take a significant amount of money, the land to do it, the people demand it. Um they they had a heck of a program there in Flint where they had the police uh working with the kids, and it uh did a heck of a good thing for the community uh in teaching the kids uh safety, uh road safety. And so many of the people I've seen discussing the topic from Flint uh said that that's where they learned how to drive.

Arthur Busch 16:46

Yes, well we learned the rules to stop anyway. Uh having been the prosecutor not stopping is usually one of the causes, one of the biggest causes of fatalities uh natural speed.